November 2025 in Davis California

August 14, 2026Leave a comment

And so we move on towards the end of 2025 in Davis California. That was a long year wasn’t it. Don’t go back and tell them, 2026 is not any better. All you can do is what you can. I do my job, spend time with my family, and draw lots and lots of things. Sometimes I run. Last November I ran my second 10k and nailed it, getting my personal best time, ten minutes faster than the year before (my watch broke 17 seconds into the run so I had no idea of my pace, so I just ran faster and it worked). Then I went to work, and made a big teaching budget presentation to our faculty. In my post-run confidence I decided that day to run a half marathon by the next November. That would be this coming November, 2026. I have done a 10k since, and a 7k, and a 5k, and lots of running and then not running. And right now, three months away from the half marathon I told myself I would do when I’m 50, it’s more of a ‘having-a-laugh’ marathon. No way do I feel ready yet. Sure I can work at it still, and it’s a great goal. But mentally, I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m more on the ‘having-a-laugh’ side right now than in the ‘do it!’ camp. I will decide in a month. Still if there are any marathons for sketching, well I’m right there, because that I can do. The sketch above was on the first day of November, a bright day where I stood next to the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer Mansion (I can never remember the order of the names) and drew the side of Mishka’s and the Varsity. I liked this sketch a lot, though I only coloured in a little bit, including that shadow, which I was very pleased about because I used a little burnt sienna in the mix with ultramarine, which I had seen someone do at the symposium and I’d never done, and it created quite a warm feeling to the shade. Look at me, mixing paints to find nice tones. While carry lots of paints around I have never been one of those people who gets super into paints and mixes, I am all about doing the drawing and colouring it in. After coming back from Toulouse now I am thinking about doing more paint stuff, maybe even getting better brushes, but that would mean looking after them, not putting them in my pencil case where the bristles get caught in the zip, that sort of thing. I always think, I’m not a good enough painter to deserve a good brush. Story of my life.

This one was drawn in the Arboretum, and that is a turkey in the foreground, that was just passing by with its turkey friends. We have so many in Davis, they just wander about. “Don’t people eat them? They would eat them here!” say people back in London, to which I say “No they don’t, obviously” and “No they wouldn’t, obviously”. This one was just minding its own business, digging up worms or whatever, and I drew the tress and Lake Spafford behind. I like the Arboretum, sometimes I get bored of sketching all the trees and then I remember, no I love sketching trees. Not so much all the foliage, but that’s like saying you like sketching people, just not the faces, or the feet or hands or clothes. Wait, I do say all that. I like drawing hair, and beards, and glasses are a big help so I don’t have to worry about messing up the eyes.

This is Bizarro World on E street, which I have drawn a few times before, because it is right there and I come down this way a lot. It’s a good comic store. They rent movies too but I have not done that. They have games too, and action figures, and cards, all that fun stuff. Second hand sci-fi and fantasy books too. When I was reading comics a lot I would go in there more, I’ve not been reading many comics for a while now though. I like drawing sketches like this, not always completing the colour, but really focusing on the perspective, especially as it goes down the alleyway.

Speaking of shops in Davis, here is one of my favourites, Soccer and Lifestyle. To my massive surprise, I was passing down 2nd Street one day and it was GONE. Now this was one of the first shops I ever went into in Davis, on that day in Fall 2005 when my wife was interviewing at UC Davis and I was walking about the downtown, seeing if this was somewhere I’d want to live or not. A lot hinged on that, if I had said “nah, Davis is too far away, too flat, and the downtown shops are rubbish” we would probably not have come here, well maybe. As it was, I went to the Avid Reader bookshop, Bogey’s Books (which is where Bizarro World now is), and Soccer and Lifestyle, which clinched the deal for me. The fact Davis had a shop dedicated to selling football shorts, my obsession? I chatted with the owner, who complained about Kappa not supplying in the US (Spurs were Kappa at the time, before Puma, Under Armour and now Nike), and I decided I really liked this shop and Davis was alright, as it goes. Well we ended up moving here and the rest is biography. So when I saw the shop was empty I panicked. (Would we have to move to a city closer to where football shirts were sold?) But I read the sign that said they had moved to 3rd Street, just a block away, phew. I do really like their new location. In fact I sketched it inside during the World Cup in June. The last kit I got there was the 2026 Japan away kit, that one is lovely. Anyway I drew this one shortly after the new location opened, it’s right next to Dunloe Brewing, which is where the old bike shop used to be, B&L? I forget the name now. I probably drew that. Just past that is Zia’s I have drawn that place a couple of times. I have this idea of making a book of all the shops in downtown Davis, mixed in with sketches of the people that run them or at least work there, that would be a really fun project and way to connect downtown. Everything changes.

And finally this is another panorama, down on the corner of 2nd and G Streets. I have drawn panoramas here before, but this one was done during one of our Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawls, we had a good crowd with us that day. I used that tree with its reddish bark as the anchor in the middle for this sketch, and let the world unfold around it. You can see some sketchers there on the left. The trees were already quite autumnal, it happens a little later here than in some other places. On the left corner is Froggy’s / Tommy J’s, I have not been in there for ages but I remember they have delicious chicken burgers in there, I mean really nice. There is a sign to the right of the centre there that tells a little bit of history. This part of Davis is the oldest part of town, and used to have a kind of gateway arch here many decades ago.

November 2025 was actually 20 years since I moved to Davis (November 5th actually). I already commemorated that at the time with the following two posts:

Check back soon for December…

two decades in Davis!

November 5, 2025November 5, 2025Leave a comment

Memor esto, memor esto, Quintum Novembris. Today is the Fifth of November, which is Guy Fawkes Night / Bonfire Night to us British, but to Americans it is just plain old November the Fifth. It is also twenty years to the day that my wife and I arrived here in the city of Davis, having moved to California from London a month and a half before. Twenty years! 2005 was a different world. Today was a very rainy Wednesday, out of character in this otherwise quite sunny week. I was not sure how I would commemorate 20 years in Davis. I thought about making a short e-book with 20 years of sketches. I started making a video showing 20 years of sketches over some easy-listening music, to be a bit like The Gallery from Tony Hart’s old shows (why did he have to keep the kids’ drawings, why? That’s why I never sent mine in.). I thought about making a poster like I did for 10 Years in Davis. I even started a very long post featuring 21 drawings from the past 20 years (2005-2025 inclusive, that’s 21, do the Math. s.), one drawing from each year, with a little story about that year. That was getting very autobiographical, more than usual, and so I stopped. I might still do that some time, though I don’t know if it does you good to be too retrospective. I might still do all of these things. Instead what I am going to do is time travel back to 2005, not November but December, to the first sketches I did in Davis. Yes, it’s amazing I went over a month without drawing but things were different in those days. I didn’t yet have a job, or any money, and spent my time going to the library to use their computer to get online and write my blog, or emails back home. My wife heard about this thing called ‘worldwide sketchcrawl’, and that there would be a meeting of sketchers one Saturday in December, and that I should go to it, get me out of the apartment. Good idea. I went to Mishka’s Cafe on 2nd Street (which was about a block away from the current Mishka’s), and was very shy but I did a bunch of sketches, in my 2005 style. The sketch above outside Mishka’s is the very first sketch I did in Davis; there have been hundreds and hundreds since. I don’t know who that sketching guy was, but a couple of the people on that sketchcrawl (Alison and Allan) are people I sketched with for years afterwards. I went down to Covell Commons and drew Borders (remember Borders?), then moved through the Arboretum for the first time, finding my way to campus which I had not yet really explored except for Shields Library. As the day went on I sketched by myself, I was very shy, and in the end I didn’t meet up with the others to see what we had all done, I felt oddly self-conscious. But I like this little group of sketches now. It was a little while before I did more sketching of Davis, it was a slow start, not really getting going again until mid-2006 (but then absolutely I never stopped). So to celebrate 20 years living in Davis here are those sketches from 2005. Borders is long gone, I’m better at drawing those bridges (but still get them a bit wrong), I don’t know if those mysterious sculptures at the back of TB9 are still there, and I’ve drawn the Eggheads many times since.

Anyway, I have officially been a Davisite for twenty years now. If you want to see the sketches that all came after these ones, most of them are in this Flickr folder: Davis CA. Happy Fifth of November!

sketching a rainy day in davis

April 26, 2024Leave a comment

Last month we held another Let’s Draw Davis sketchcrawl in downtown Davis, this time on 2nd Street. It was a really rainy day too, but we had a good turnout of sketchers not minding that. I sat beneath the shelter of the Varsity Theatre and sketched the Avid Reader bookstore, a local favourite spot (and where I worked a long long time ago). the rain was really hard, absolutely bucketing down. That was a busy day for me; I had woken up early and taken part in the annual Lucky Run, and this time I ran the 7k distance for the first time ever. Usually I run the 5k, but I wanted a bit more of a challenge. I’ve not been running as much and am definitely heavier, but I smashed that 7k and want to run more. I am aiming to go for the 10k by the Fall, so I had better get back to training, cut back on those milkshakes. Next week, maybe.

I went into Mishka’s Cafe to do a last sketch, and several of the other sketchers were there. I sketched the scene in my brown fountain pen, and had a big fruity smoothie (which took several straws to drink, because their plastic straws are a bit too weak to be used in their smoothies, I must remember to bring my reusable metal straw next time). Then we all got together afterwards to look at each others’ sketchbooks, there were some great styles on display.

I recently posted the next Let’s Draw Davis event which will be on Saturday May the 4th, so I made a Star Wars style logo for this one. Check out details at the Let’s Draw Davis FB page.

“you carry on ’cause it’s all you know”

February 22, 2024February 23, 20242 Comments

Here are a few downtown sketches from last week. Above is Pinkadot, a clothes shop I’ve never been in (not really my style), next door to Baskin Robbins, which I have been in once or twice. I really like their milkshakes. One thing about milkshakes, they do make a stressful day/week/month feel that little bit better. It’s still only February! 2024 already feels like it’s been going on for about six months, and March, one of the busiest months, isn’t even here yet. I am going on a short trip to Los Angeles in March though, which should be nice, I’m going to a conference for work so it’s business and professional development, but as well all know that will also mean a lot of sketching. Hey, do you see that butterfly on the wall next to Pinkadot? That’s you that is. Sorry, old TV catchphrase alert. It did make me think of the song by The Jam, ‘The Butterfly Collector’. I think I’m like a butterfly collector, in my own little dream world, collecting sketches of places. I love that song.

This is Mishka’s Cafe, next to the Varsity. I don’t come here very often (not really a coffee drinker) but I do like their smoothies. Mishka’s is a Davis mainstay, but when I first moved here, the cafe was a block down the street. It was at that cafe that I first joined a ‘sketchcrawl’ back in December 2005, a long long time ago. I drew this when it was threatening to rain. We have had a lot of rain lately, those atmospheric rivers, but we need it. Those drought years were not fun either. This building is located where the old tank house used to be, years ago. I have spent well over a third of my life in Davis, in fact I’ve spent almost two thirds of my adult life in Davis, in fact you could say I’ve spent all of my actual grown-up life in Davis, but even that is up for debate. Time just keeps moving on, and that’s that. “And you started looking much older…” I’ve got that song in my head now. The Jam do fill me with joy, but also sadness, they remind me of my uncle Billy who passed away a few years ago, who used to play me his Jam records in his bedroom when I was a kid. As I write, on this day five years ago I was in England for his wedding, the last time I saw him. I think of him a lot.

And finally, the Varsity Theatre, that classic Davis landmark I have drawn loads of times. I don’t go inside very often, in fact the last film I saw in there was Jojo Rabbit. I don’t draw it from this angle much, it’s dramatic feels slightly overwhelming to me for some reason. Oh, everything feels overwhelming these days, drawing in a sketchbook is much less overwhelming than the rest of the world. I’ve been playing my guitar quite a lot lately, that’s a stress reliever. I keep dreaming about getting another, though I don’t need one. Well there’s one I want, but I quite like just wanting it. I find I have been trying to find the right sounds lately. I’m not a technically good player, I don’t do all the fiddly stuff, I am more about the rhythm and the chord changes. I have not written a ‘song’ in years and years and I don’t really want to start doing so again, but I cannot help myself coming up with little micro-pieces, whatever comes into my head, and quickly recording them on my phone. I will go back in later and listen to them, all about 30 seconds long each, and I always feel surprised at how much I like those little scraps when played together. Some are a bit pants, but they are like little thumbnail sketches of music, only for me, no words but occasionally some random lyrics thrown over to make a melody. Not for anyone’s ears but mine, just how I like it, little butterflies only a few chords long.

mishka’s

July 4, 2018July 3, 20182 Comments

This is the interior of Mishka’s Cafe on 2nd street, Davis, as much a staple of Davis life as anything. I don’t actually come here very often myself (I don’t drink coffee, though of course they serve more than coffee) (I never drink tea other than at home, except in England where it’s just how I like it) but a lot of people do. It opened in 1995 in a different location, and I sketched there on the very first sketchcrawl I ever went on in Davis (December 2005, wow). That spot closed when Mishka’s moved a block down the street to a new building next to the Varsity, where the old tank house used to be, opposite the Avid Reader. I’ve never sketched in this newer location (though I drew the outside in 2012). As I say I don’t drink coffee but I do drink lovely fruit smoothies, and I had a delicious mango smoothie, followed by a very sweet wild berry smoothie (bit too sweet after the mango one). It was a Sunday evening, I had been stuck in the house for the whole weekend and needed to get out for a bit, and draw something in my sketchbook. It was not crowded there. There are still a few places I want to draw the interior of here in Davis. Tres Hermanas has a really interesting vibe, while Our House has one of those big mirrors I like to draw the reflections in. I have gone to Woodstocks Pizza to draw before but ended up leaving because I couldn’t settle into a good spot, and I wanted to draw inside that Italian restaurant over near Olive and Richards but I think it has closed now. In this hot weather, I’m on a quest for some interior sketching.

Below is a sketch of Mishka’s previous location, from over 10 years ago! There is fellow Davis sketcher Alison Kent. This was an earlier Davis sketchcrawl. I had a wild berry smoothie that day too.